course of your day which can change the
course of your year which can change who
you are you know who said that Taylor
Swift I bet you that that was the first
time anyone has ever used a taylor swift
code to start off a TEDx talk so
congrats TEDx Farmington High School we
have just made TEDx history easy as that
in all seriousness though think about
that quote it’s kind of absurd right
nowadays humans are expected to live
longer than ever eighty years right and
to think that one instance in one day
could change a year which could change
your life that’s kind of absurd right
one out of 80 but what I’ve realized is
it’s true not just because it’s from
Taylor’s shift but because I’ve learned
it to be true two years ago I did
possibly the most ridiculous and unheard
of thing a ninth grader could do i
started at I company I started going
around school selling ties with slogans
like chick magnet or a baller or lacks
bro and ever since then my whole life
has changed and that was two years ago I
decided to take a leap of faith and so
here I am today two years later still
profitable and still having a lot of fun
it’s a lot of work I’m not going to
sugarcoat it I have to talk with
manufacturers retailers people all
across the world to help me make this
company a successful company and what
I’ve realized is that I still love doing
it that no matter how much work or how
many late nights I have to spend on it I
would wake up and do it all over again
the next day and through these
experiences I learned three main lessons
three major keys as DJ Khaled would say
to the path of succeeding and not just
building a tie company that sells
novelty neckwear but in challenging the
norm no one likes to challenge the norm
and people especially don’t like people
who challenged the norm if that makes
sense challenge in the norm is hard it’s
it’s the modern equivalent of being a
hipster right but with these three major
keys
I really hope that when you leave this
auditorium you can go out and challenged
the norm regardless of your age first
you don’t have to wait my whole life I
thought that I would have to wait until
I was something to start doing what I
wanted to do I would tell myself you
know what I’ll wait until I have a high
school degree or wait until after
college I’ll wait until I’m 10 years
older right but what I soon realized was
when I took that leap of faith I didn’t
have to wait anymore I didn’t have to
wait for someone else to give me the
green light I didn’t have to wait for a
parent a teacher a mentor to say go
ahead trace and do it I could just do it
myself no matter how old I was and this
means to me that the future is as far or
as close as you want it to be the future
can be in a decade or the future can be
next year next month tomorrow in an hour
the future is as close as we want it to
be and so there should be nothing
holding us back like our age from doing
what we want to do and following our
passions second as kids we’re going to
experience a lot of obstacles and people
who stand in our way simply because of
our age simply because we can’t vote
simply because we can’t drive simply
because we still order off the kids menu
now it doesn’t really matter how old you
are nowadays these this whole world we
have it at our fingertips right how many
of you guys have a cell phone right
everyone has a cell phone right nowadays
and we have the whole world at our
fingertips where we can create a
movement tomorrow we can start a company
tomorrow we can do everything that we
want to do tomorrow if we wanted and by
overcoming these obstacles that many
people face a long time ago we are
empowered to change the world because we
have this amazing network at our
fingertips we can reach out to anyone
and everyone from across the world to
help us overcome our obstacles I know I
had to do that two years ago because two
years ago I had no idea what I was doing
I was just going around having fun
selling funny ties right but what I soon
realized was I needed to have a business
plan I need
to file for taxes i had to you know
start a company really incorporated and
so i had to reach out to anyone who
would listen to me anyone who is willing
to help me and what I realized was that
people want to invest in us in kids just
this week I flew in from Los Angeles
right on Thursday landed from Los
Angeles where I was pitching to
investors five investors and two of them
were willing to invest in me and what
they both told me was that they weren’t
investing in just the ties they weren’t
just investing in the company they were
investing in me because when they invest
in kids when they invest in us they’re
investing for the future and people want
to do it they want to invest in the
future leaders of the country which we
are and this means that out there there
are hundreds if not thousands of people
willing to help you you just have to
find them and ask and I really encourage
you don’t be afraid to ask them for help
for mentorship for resources be is the
worst thing that they can say is no I’ve
had a lot of people say no to me whether
I’m trying to sell them at I whether i’m
trying to sell in their store or trying
to partner with them for long-term
growth a lot of people have said no and
what I’ve realized is that those haters
are gonna hate hate hate and we’re just
going to shake it off shake it off and
another Taylor served reference right
there because I really do enjoy your
music but really these people who are
going to tell you know find other people
who are willing to help you because one
note isn’t the end of the world and
that’s a segue into my next point that
as kids we have this freedom we have
this power to be able to fail failure is
great failure is okay in fact I love
failure because when I fail I can grow
from it I can learn as a person right
and that’s an opportunity that kids
that’s a freedom kids have because we’re
young people discriminate against our
age and say that you know that’s the
reason that’s going to hold us back but
I say that’s an opportunity right there
we can fail now because it’s not the end
of our it’s not the end of the world
because we can learn from it and keep on
growing because we have a nice bright
future ahead of us and
I guess what i mean by having a nice
bright future that means challenging the
norm but more importantly that means
following your passions that means going
out there and doing something that’s
going to bring value to your life and to
people around you that’s going to be
something that excites you every morning
that even if it’s a monday i hate
mondays right but if it’s going to
excite you and get you up on monday
morning and excited and eager to go to
work on that passion that’s what you’re
going to be able to do we all have
passions right whether it’s learning
sports music art taylor swift it really
doesn’t matter what you’re passionate
about but that you can go out and do it
and through this journey I’ve started to
write not like write an essay because
I’m really bad at writing as my English
teacher can tell you but I really
started to write my story after I took
that leap of faith I started writing a
story my story and what I’ve learned is
that we are our own writers you and only
you write the story that you want to
read because of novelty because of
having started to write my story I’ve
learned so much and I’ve kept growing my
passions after i started novel tie my
best friend and i decided to launch a ty
cobb sorry an education company called
spell for success design to help kids
study and after i started that we
decided to sell our company to a
million-dollar education company in
chicago for months it took to sign those
contracts when I first reached out they
said that we were ridiculous that we
were a joke no way you guys are 16 you
can’t have anything worth buying we
proved them wrong we shook it off and we
kept on going and four months later we
had sold that company because of novelty
I’ve gone the very great opportunity to
serve on nonprofits and organizations
that matter to me things that I know
will make an impact and things that I’m
passionate about organizations like the
National Campaign to Prevent Teen and
unplanned pregnancy or the harvard
graduate school of education or kid
backer enterprises a non-profit designed
to help low-income entrepreneurs succeed
in their small businesses now you might
say to yourself okay trace cool
these three lessons great have them
written down what do I do now right I
don’t want to start at a company totally
fine in fact less competition for
novelty what I want you to do with these
three lessons is not just go out there
and start selling ties like I did I want
you to go out there and challenged the
norm because I know all of you can do it
now there were dozens of haters as
Taylor Swift would call them who told me
that starting a company at a young age
was ridiculous that I should just focus
on school you know focus on the text
books don’t focus on selling ties or
traveling around the country meeting
young entrepreneurs it’s worthless but
now two years later I look back as Chris
Brown would say look at me now whether
you want to learn about everything in
anything whether you want to sell ties
whether you want to start a company or
you just want to make the world a better
place I highly encourage you use these
lessons in your life so I’ve gotten the
great opportunity to share the tiniest
thing that changed my day my year and
who I am and I really hope that you can find yours thank you so much